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Ils arrivent trois à trois,

Montent l'escalier de bois

Clopin-clopant! quel gendarme
Peut permettre ce vacarme,
Bons amis,

À la porte d'Agassiz!

"Ouvrez donc, mon bon Seigneur, Ouvrez vite et n'ayez peur; Ouvrez, ouvrez, car nous sommes

Gens de bien et gentilshommes,
Bons amis,

De la famille Agassiz."

Chut, ganaches! taisez-vous !
C'en est trop de vos glouglous
Épargnez aux Philosophes
Vos abominables strophes !
Bons amis,

Respectez mon Agassiz!

KILLED AT THE FORD.

He is dead, the beautiful youth,
The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,-
He, the life and light of us all,

Whose voice was as blithe as a bugle call
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,

The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word,
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

Only last night, as we rode along,
Down the dark of the mountain gap,

To visit the picquet-guard at the ford,
Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song:

"Two red roses he had on his cap,

And another he bore at the point of his sword."

Sudden and swift a whistling ball

Came out of the wood, and the voice was still;
Something I heard in the darkness fall,
And for a moment my blood grew chill:
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room when some one is lying dead;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him on his saddle again,

And through the mire, and the mist, and the rain
Carried him back to the silent camp,

And laid him as if asleep on his bed;

And I saw, by the light of the surgeon's lamp,

Two white roses upon his cheeks,

And one just over his heart blood-red!

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet
That fatal bullet went speeding forth,
Till it reached a town in the distant North,
Till it reached a house in a sunny street,
Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat

Without a murmur, without a cry;

And a bell was tolled in that far-off town,
For one who had passed from cross to crown,—
And the neighbours wondered that she should die.

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Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent,
And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead! nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

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Shall surround thee on every side,
And attend thee night and day."
But the sullen Scribe replied:
"Our pathways here divide;
Mine leadeth not thy way."

And even as he spoke
Fell a sudden scimitar stroke,
When no one else was near;
And the Scribe sank to the ground,
As a stone, pushed from the brink
Of a black pool, might sink
With a sob and disappear:
And no one saw the deed;
And in the stillness around

No sound was heard but the sound
Of the hoofs of Iskander's steed,
As forward he sprang with a bound.

Then onward he rode and afar,
With scarce three hundred men,
Through river and forest and fen,
O'er the mountains of Argentar;
And his heart was merry within
When he crossed the river Drin,
And saw in the gleam of the morn
The White Castle Ak-hissar,
The city Croia called,
The city moated and walled,
The city where he was born,-
And above it the morning star.

Then his trumpeters in the van
On their silver bugles blew,
And in crowds about him ran
Albanian and Turkoman,
That the sound together drew.
And he feasted with his friends,
And when they were warm with wine,
He said: "O friends of mine,
Behold what fortune sends,
And what the fates design!
King Amurath commands
That my father's wide domain,

This city and all its lands, Shall be given to me again."

Then to the Castle White
He rode in regal state,
And entered in at the gate
In all his arms bedight,
And gave to the Pasha
Who ruled in Croia

The writing of the King,
Sealed with his signet ring.
And the Pasha bowed his head,
And after a silence said:
"Allah is just and great!

I yield to the will divine,
The city and lands are thine;
Who shall contend with fate?"

Anon from the castle walls
The crescent banner falls,
And the crowd beholds instead,
Like a portent in the sky,
Iskander's banner fly,

The Black Eagle with double head;
And a shout ascends on high,

For men's souls are tired of the Turks,
And their wicked ways and works,
That have made of Ak-Hissar

A city of the plague;

And the loud, exultant cry
That echoes wide and far
Is: "Long live Scanderbeg!"

It was thus Iskander came
Once more unto his own;
And the tidings, like the flame
Of a conflagration blown
By the winds of summer, ran,
Till the land was in a blaze,
And the cities far and near,
Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir,

In his Book of the Words of the Days, "Were taken as a man

Would take the tip of his ear."

THE RHYME OF SIR CHRISTOPHER.

Ir was Sir Christopher Gardiner,
Knight of the Holy Sepulchre,
From Merry England over the sea,
Who stepped upon this continent
As if his august presence lent
A glory to the colony.

You should have seen him in the street
Of the little Boston of Winthrop's time,
His rapier dangling at his feet,
Doublet and hose and boots complete,
Prince Rupert hat with ostrich plume,
Gloves that exhaled a faint perfume,
Luxuriant curls and air sublime,
And superior manners now obsolete !

He had a way of saying things
That made one think of courts and kings,
And lords and ladies of high degree;
So that not having been at court
Seemed something very little short
Of treason or lese-majesty,
Such an accomplished knight was he.

His dwelling was just beyond the town,
At what he called his country seat;
For, careless of Fortune's smile or frown,
And weary grown of the world and its
ways,

He wished to pass the rest of his days
In a private life and a calm retreat.

But a double life was the life he led ;
And, while professing to be in search
Of a godly course, and willing, he said,
Nay, anxious to join the Puritan Church,
He made of all this but small account,
And passed his idle hours instead
With roystering Morton of Merry Mount,
That pettifogger from Furnival's Inn,
Lord of misrule and riot and sin,
Who looked on the wine when it was red.

This country-seat was little more
Than a cabin of logs; but in front of
the door

A modest flower-bed thickly sown
With sweet alyssum and columbine
Made those who saw it at once divine
The touch of some other hand than his

own.

And first it was whispered, and then it was known,

That he in secret was harbouring there A little lady with golden hair,

Whom he called his cousin, but whom he had wed

In the Italian manner, as men said;
And great was the scandal everywhere.

But worse than this was the vague surmise

Though none could vouch for it or averThat the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre Was only a Papist in disguise;

And the more to embitter their bitter lives,

And the more to trouble the public mind, Came letters from England, from two other wives,

Whom he had carelessly left behind;
Both of them letters of such a kind
As made the governor hold his breath;
The one imploring him straight to send
The husband home, that he might amend;
The other asking his instant death,
As the only way to make an end.

The wary governor deemed it right, When all this wickedness was revealed, To send his warrant signed and sealed, And take the body of the knight.

Armed with this mighty instrument,
The marshal, mounting his gallant steed,
Rode forth from town at the top of his
speed,

And followed by all his bailiffs bold,
As if on high achievement bent,
To storm some castle or stronghold,
Challenge the warders on the wall,
And seize in his ancestral hall
A robber-baron grim and old.

But when through all the dust and heat
He came to Sir Christopher's country-seat,
No knight he found, nor warder there,
But the little lady with golden hair,
Who was gathering in the bright sunshine
The sweet alyssum and columbine;

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